I am an old Cold Warrior. I have served for almost 37 years in the military including tours or deployments on the intra-German border in the 1980s waiting for the Soviets to come pouring across the Fulda Gap, being on the Korean DMZ in 2001, and to complete the Commie Trifecta a bunch of time at Guantanamo Bay Cuba at the Northeast Gate. In those 37 years I have served under six Presidents and never did I believe until now that a President of the United States betray every longstanding ally and then to add insult to injury has very likely surrendered South Korea to the North Korean dictator with no conditions. It reminds me of how Neville Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in 1938.

In 1938 Chamberlain was the supposed leader of the democracies and in order to curry favor with Hitler and to “bring peace to Europe” made a deal which surrendered Czechoslovakia to Hitler. As bad as that was and as horrific the consequences were for Europe and the world Chamberlain actually believed that his actions were required for peace. He believed that he could appease Hitler at the cost of a small multi-ethnic democracy, after all what did the Czech’s really matter?

When Chamberlain flew back to London he alighted from his aircraft holding a piece of paper and said:

“The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: ” … We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”

Chamberlain realized that his trust in Hitler and his word had been mistaken when Hitler overran the remainder of the Czech state just five months later. Having given up the only democracy in Eastern Europe which was also industrialized and militarily strong to the Nazis, Chamberlain went to war with Hitler over Poland, a authoritarian military dictatorship whose military and geographic position doomed her to the Nazi onslaught. Chamberlain finally did stand up to Hitler when it was too late. He was naive and in the case of Czechoslovakia he acted horribly, but he did recover some sense of honor by not appeasing Hitler in regard to Poland but by then it was too late and he has been forever remembered as an appeaser of Hitler.

Before Chamberlain surrendered Czechoslovakia to Hitler, General Ludwig Beck, Commander of the German Army wrote to the General Von Brauchtisch the War Minister to oppose the planned invasion:

“Now at stake are final decisions regarding the fate of the nation. History will burden these leaders with blood guilt if they do not act according to their professional and statesmanly principles and knowledge…. If a soldier in a position of highest authority in such times sees his duties and tasks only within the limits of his military responsibilities, without consciousness of his higher responsibility to the whole people, then he shows a lack of greatness, a lack of comprehension of responsibility. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary actions!”

That will not be the case for President Trump. He too has touted his “triumph” as something that will bring peace, but in the process he has betrayed an American ally whose freedom was purchased with the lives of close to 40,000 American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen and I do not see anyone in high command

Unfortunately the current American President has made war much more likely because he has not only sacrificed military exercises that strengthen the American-South Korean alliance with no actual concessions by Kim Jung Un. His actions not only strengthen the North Korean dictator but also strengthen Kim’s allies, the Russians and the Chinese. The Chinese have been actively working against the United States in the military and economic reams in Asia and Africa while Vladimir Putin’s Russia has actively pursued undermining democratic processes in the United States and Europe.

When Donald Trump returns from Asia he will hold up a piece of paper signed by Kim Jung Un and claim that he has brought peace to the world. He may even get a Noble Prize for doing so, but in the end he will sacrifice allies and bring war to the world while making the United States weaker and more vulnerable to our enemies. His actions are not those of a patriot, but a Quisling. His followers will never admit that and like Hitler’s true believers they would much rather die with him in their bunker than admit that they were wrong in the first place.

This is a dangerous time in history and the American Republic is in danger, our alliances which have been crafted with great skill since Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill announced the Atlantic Charter, by Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barak Obama over a period of 77 years have been shredded in less than a year and a half by President Trump.

The actions of the American President in the past 72 hours have endangered the United States and its allies. French Historian Marc Bloch wrote in his book Strange Defeat:

“A genuine alliance is something that has to be worked at all the time. It is not enough to have it set down on paper. It must draw the breath of life from a multiplicity of daily contacts which, taken together, knit the two parties solidly into a single whole. That truth had been too long forgotten at First Army H.Q., and we suffered terribly as a result of our negligence.”

Bloch, who served in the First World War and volunteered to serve in the Second World War would die at the hands of the Nazis while working with the French resistance understood what a minority of Americans do today,

I want peace on the Korean Peninsula, I have served there and been on the DMZ. That being said I do not want that peace to come at the cost of the freedom of South Koreans. Likewise, the President has praised the murderous dictatorship of Kim Jung Un and given that dictator a legitimacy that he does not deserve for a minute. Less than two days before he destroyed the G7 Summit and undermined the nation’s who have stood beside the United States throughout the Cold War and then with diplomacy, economic, and military assistance stood with us when we were attacked on September 11th 2001 to the present day.

On Tuesday the President endorsed Concentration camps, re-education centers, slave labor, and human rights violations by North Korea. Today he has claimed that North Korea no longer is a nuclear threat. His decision to end joint military exercises just happens to coincide with the public demands made for years by North Korea, Russia, and China. Do not expect for one moment that he will not do the same in this country, he has already started with immigrants. One should ask who will be next?

In 1938 Winston Churchill told the House of Commons:

“We have sustained a total, unmitigated defeat…. Do not let us blind ourselves. We must expect that all the countries of central and eastern Europe will make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power…. The road down the Danube… the road to the Black Sea and Turkey, has been broken. It seems to me that all the countries of Mittel Europa and the Danube Valley, one after the other, will be drawn into the vast system of Nazi politics, not only power military politics, but power economic politics, radiating from Berlin.”

Welcome!

Zum Wohl!

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